Wiki Wills

Souls of Black

Reviews

Rating: 4 / 5
Date: 2010-02-24
Summary: "An underrated classic!"

This cd seems to receive some bad reviews. Why? I don't really know. It's great!

Of course TestAmenT's two best albums are always The Legacy and The New Order, these two are untouchable in their own right, especially the former. After this point though, they took an admittedly commercial turn with Practice What You Preach. While this is a good album, I found that most of the songs were a lot slower and less heavy than they had done before, with some exceptions, Blessed In Contempt being the best.

On this album it seems to me that they tried to go back to the style of The Legacy, with more of a fast thrash assault. The only slower moments are the intro, the title track (which is one of the best anyways), and the amazing ballad known as The Legacy. Besides that we have mostly thrash in the same spirit as from their almighty first album.

The only weak point I seem to notice is that a couple songs have riffs that sound very much like they came from other TestAmenT songs. For instance Falling Fast has a riff that's quite similar to The Haunting.

This is really the last classic Testament album, the follow up would see them slowing down big time, and even though they've put out some amazing stuff since, none are quite the same style as their original four albums (although Formation came very close.) I'd recommend this one after you get the first two and The Gathering, all these are mandatory.

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Rating: 4 / 5
Date: 2009-11-09
Summary: "why is there no track list for most of testaments albums on this site"

i would like to see a track list but this sit dont include a song list for a ton of its cd;s . why

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Rating: 3 / 5
Date: 2009-05-29
Summary: "I love this Band, but not this CD"

Testament is one of my favorite bands, and has been since 1990. This is not their best work, in fact, it may be their worst. The album starts off ok, particularly Face in the Sky, and Souls of Black, but after that it mostly feels like filler. It is not nearly as powerful of a work as Practice What You Preach, or The New Order, or even The Legacy. The guitar work of Alex Skolnick is good as always, and the vocals of Chuck deliver, but many of the songs feel rushed, like they would not have made most of the other Testament Albums. If you are going to buy one Testament CD, make it either The New Order, or their new one, The Formation of Damnation, or maybe the Gathering. If you buy this one, and it is the criteria you judge them upon, you may end up liking this band less than they deserve.

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Rating: 3 / 5
Date: 2009-04-10
Summary: "a could have been great cd went south by rushing it and poor production!"

this cd was very rushed for the fact of wanting to get on the clash of the titans tour in 90 and for some damn reason this cd was recorded badly and have awful production.this song could have been great but they just fall flat(I'v heard them live at the time and they are very good heavier than on cd)this cd was to put them up with the top 4 thrash bands but stalled them even after clash of the titans and opening for slayer.

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Rating: 4 / 5
Date: 2008-08-02
Summary: "Another good offering from Testament ... but certainly not their best"

First, the production was pretty bad (as it was on most early Testament albums, but this was thhe worst), meaning it's hard to feel the energy of the songs.

Second, this was their first album that was not solid from start to finish. You could play The Legacy, The New Order, or Practice What You Preach from start to finish and there was not a weak song or filler on the album, where Souls of Black is plagued by fillers.

Souls of Black, Face In The Sky and The Legacy are all top-notch songs from the band worthy of their first three albums. The problem is the rest of the album isn't as memoriable.

Still not a bad album by any means.